Entrée d'une noce à l'église

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Admiral Cigarette

August 1897 •English

Late 1800s cigarette advertisement produced by Thomas Edison Manufacturing.

Alone

February 1990 •Finnish

A documentary-like film about Jussi Parviainen's divorce.

Maybe If We Try

January 1983 •English

A discussion about the difficulties of marriage, including interviews with James Dobson and five married couples. Featuring Pat Boone, Debby Boone, and BJ Thomas.

Saving Marriage

June 2006 •English

A landmark court decision in Massachusetts allows gay people in that state to marry - forcing activists, legislators, and ordinary people to reconsider how they view same-sex relationships.

Naked in America

January 2011 •English

Naked in America follows four everyday American couples from all walks of life, as they shed their clothes and inhibitions for a week at a luxury nudist resort in Palm Springs, California. Capturing the reactions of this diverse group to their new environment, the uncensored feature-length documentary examines the American attitude towards the naked human form, and to each other.

Railway Station

January 1980 •Polish

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

R. F. Outcault Making a Sketch of Buster and Tige

March 1904 •English

Buster Brown creater R.F. Outcault sketches his creation. Part of the Buster Brown series for Edison film studio.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

June 1896 •French

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

September 1927 •German

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Tornado Alley

March 2011 •English

Tornado Alley documents two unprecedented missions seeking to encounter one of Earth’s most awe-inspiring events—the birth of a tornado. Filmmaker Sean Casey’s personal quest to capture the birth of a tornado with a 70mm camera takes viewers on a breathtaking journey into the heart of the storm. A team of equally driven scientists, the VORTEX2 researchers, experience the relentless strength of nature’s elemental forces as they literally surround tornadoes and the supercell storms that form them, gathering the most comprehensive severe weather data ever collected.

Horňácká svatba

January 1946 •Czech

Kings of Comedy: Masters of the Silent Screen

December 2007 •English

A documentary about some of the comedians of the silent era featuring clips from their films and biographical information.

Powers of Ten

June 1977 •English

A scientific film essay, narrated by Phil Morrison. A set of pictures of two picnickers in a park, with the area of each frame one-tenth the size of the one before. Starting from a view of the entire known universe, the camera gradually zooms in until we are viewing the subatomic particles on a man's hand.

Solarmax

July 2000 •English

Solarmax is a 40-minute giant-screen documentary that tells the story of humankind's struggle to understand the sun. The film will take audiences on an incredible voyage from pre-history to the leading edge of today's contemporary solar science.

100 Year Old Coach

January 1926 •English

Crowds block the streets to catch a view of a handsome old carriage at a Jewish wedding.

In the Land of Giants and Pygmies

January 1925 •English

IN THE LAND OF GIANT PYGMIES, a diary of Aurelio Rossi's 1925 trek into the immense Belgian Congo, preserves a long-gone-Colonial-era wonder at natural resources, "primitive" tribes, customs and costumes in Europe's cast African possessions, and implies that the "dark continent" could benefit from the "civilizing" influences of home.

Film-Tract n° 1968

June 1968 •French

In the 1968 movement in Paris, Jean-Luc Godard made a 16mm, 3-minute long film, Film-tract No.1968, Le Rouge, in collaboration with French artist Gérard Fromanger. Starting with the shot identifying its title written in red paint on the Le Monde for 31 July 1968, the film shows the process of making Fromanger’s poster image, which is thick red paint flows over a tri-color French flag. —Hye Young Min

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

September 2007 •English

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

Las Hurdes, país de leyenda

January 1922 •Spanish

An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.